With 396 votes in favour, 102 against and 131 abstentions, the European Parliament has voted in favour of the proposal to modernise and strengthen the Directive on industrial emissions (2010/75/EU, known as the ‘IED Directive’), presented by the Commission in April 2022 with a view to achieving zero toxic pollution of the EU’s water, air and soil by 2050 (see EUROPE 12926/2).
While maintaining the ambition of its Environment Committee on the report by Radan Kadev (EPP, Romanian) to combat pollution, MEPs deleted the inclusion of cattle farms in the scope of the directive.
The amendments tabled by the ECR group won the majority, with the support of the EPP and part of the Liberals, leading to a result identical to the vote in Parliament’s Agriculture Committee on the most problematic part of the directive – that of livestock farming.
For the rest, the essence of the Kadev report voted in the Environment Committee (see EUROPE 13187/3) was maintained.
Parliament supports the European Commission’s proposal to extend the directive to installations in the extractive industries and to large battery manufacturing installations (except those that exclusively assemble battery modules and packs).
It supports the inclusion of pig farms with more than 2,000 places for production pigs (over 30 kg), or more than 750 places for sows, and poultry farms with more than 40,000 places for poultry, as well as farms with more than 750 livestock units.
MEPs also referred the report back to the Environment Committee so that negotiations could be launched with the Council of the EU, which gave its opinion in March (see EUROPE 13143/6).
Radan Kadev was immediately delighted. During the previous day’s debate, he had stressed the importance of reducing bureaucracy. “The key to achieving zero pollution is innovation, and for that we need a more competitive European industrial sector”, he said.
“The big threat to small and medium-sized farmers is the industrialisation of agriculture. Only 3% of farms would be affected. There is a future for small-scale farming in Europe”, retorted Mohammed Chahim (S&D, Dutch).
Jutta Paulus (Greens/EFA) warned: “If we don’t manage to reduce emissions, particularly as a result of intensive livestock farming, we won’t be able to protect the environment and the climate. She feared that this “very important instrument for reducing pollution and protecting human health would be weakened”.
Members of the ECR and ID groups, for their part, insisted that “our cows are not emission machines” and that they could in no way be likened to polluting factories.
European Commissioner Adina-Ioana Vălean had indicated that the Commission could support the ‘Kadev’ report as it stood, without amendments.
With 563 votes in favour, 51 against and 18 abstentions, the European Parliament also adopted, without amendment, Mr Kadev’s other report on the corollary proposal to establish an emissions portal. While supporting the provision of transparent information to the public on the licensing, operation and control of regulated facilities, it confirmed its commitment to protecting confidential industrial information.
The EU Council made a decision on 7 June (see EUROPE 13196/6). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)